Custom Tooling

Custom tools are JSON-defined action triggers that extend what an AI Employee can act on during a conversation. This section explains how to define, register, and manage custom tools that call external APIs, fire internal events, or trigger follow-up actions whenever the agent commits to a specific behavior.

Articles in this section

Article	Description
Custom tools overview	Conceptual introduction to custom tools: how they work, how they differ from built-in tools, webhooks, and skills, and when to use them.
Create your first custom tool	Step-by-step tutorial: define a custom tool in JSON, register it as a project attribute, update your agent's scenario instructions, and verify the tool fires.
Tool schema reference	Complete field-by-field reference for the tool definition JSON structure, including all required and optional fields.
Write effective conditions	How the platform evaluates tool conditions, the five exclusion rules that prevent false activations, and best practices for writing condition descriptions that trigger reliably.
The send_webhook action	Configure a tool to make HTTP requests to external APIs when triggered, including how the platform extracts conversation data to populate request payloads.
The send_event action	Configure a tool to fire a system event that your own flows and skills can handle, enabling complex custom logic within the platform.
After-actions	Execute additional operations after a webhook tool fires and receives a response — surface data back to the conversation, update persona attributes, or modify agent context.
Tool conflict resolution	Use `conflictPolicy.tag` to group mutually exclusive tools so that only the most relevant one executes per conversation turn.
Register and update custom tools	Set the `project_attributes_settings_newo_tools` attribute to register tools, update them, and override built-in tools when needed.

What you need

Access to the Newo Builder interface
A project with at least one agent and flow configured
Familiarity with how conversations work on the platform (see the Core Concepts section)

Changelog

Custom Tooling: initial publication

Published subsection overview page for the Custom Tooling developer guides.